My Experience

Guest Post by Billy Briggs - SOE Metals

SOE METALS

Billy Briggs

My story begins 4 months ago when a life long friend approached me asking if
I ever thought about starting my own business.  I had been around lasers and
plasmas my whole life but never thought about getting myself a mill and
lathe.

So in January, I contacted a company and the salesman sounded great
but he lacked communication.  So I gave up on that company and that is when I
turned to Gage Machine Tool.  I called and within a week Dirk(the owner) and
Chad his trusty salesman came and had a lunch meeting with my wife and me.
Not only were they super knowledgeable of the machines and tools, but they
brought with them an actual controller off of a machine.  That had me sold
on the spot.  It was so easy to go through the steps to get a high-quality
part.

So after we got approved and the machines were delivered March 6th.
I purchased the VM10i and the TM8i, they were so tough looking.  We had to
wait a couple weeks for me to get the correct power put in (no 3 phase
direct) I have to run off of a 50hp phase converter.  Then 2 service techs
came and had them hard installed in a matter of hours.  The following Monday
Chad Waldo came and the next 3 days he and I put in some long hours.  He
wanted to make sure I was super comfortable running and programming both the
mill and the lathe that he stayed as long as I wanted him to.  

He came back in 2 weeks and was very surprised to find I had been
doing such a great job.  How could you not with such an amazing machine!  I
still have questions from time to time but rest assured Chad and his staff
are super eager to help!

I would recommend the Hurco brand and Gage Machine Tool to anyone and everyone. Such an easy machine to work with to get critical tolerances within .0005 of an
inch.

-Billy Briggs - SOE METALS

Billy workin it on his TM8!

Submarine is "Hurco Made"

Earlier this week, Hurco was invited to a local function to meet the command staff of a newly commissioned Virginia Class Nuclear Submarine, for the U.S. Navy, named after the Hoosier state - the USS INDIANA…and, as it was written on the picture above, by the skipper of the Indiana, Commander Jesse Zimbauer, this submarine is “Hurco made”.

If you have any questions about how accurate and reliable a Hurco is, ask Commander Jesse Zimbauer.

See the Complete Article

Pre-IMTS Deals Annouced

Why wait for IMTS when you can get the deal BEFORE the show?

Many people wait for IMTS to see what show deals builders will offer, but
we decided to give you the BIG deal BEFORE the BIG show. Why wait?
Request a quote today to get the deal.

Give us a call today to find out how you can get once of these deals! 1-800-522-4705

Can a Hurco hold tight tolerances... How about 10 microns? Yes

Have a quick look at this video from MTDCNC in the UK. First thing you'll notice in the A&M shop they visited, they have all Hurco's. Not only that, they have a DCX22 and TWO DCX32's. This is a tight tolerance shop that specializes in the machining parts from D2, Inconel and Titanium. Not your average cup of tea. Have a listen.

What a difference an End Mill makes.

New Sandvik End Mill from Tim Baust at Sandvik - The guy knows his stuff!

A few weeks ago we installed a new VM30i here in the Gage Machine Tool Showroom. We had a brief discussion about what kind of tooling we needed to get for doing demo's and customer runs. You would think that we had all the tooling holders and cutting tools you could imagine after having at least 20 machines in and out of the showroom over the last decade. What most people do not know is that we typically sell that tooling with the machine when it goes out the door. Hence the discussion on what kind of tooling we would need. In the past we would normally call on our buddy over at Sandvik who would come by and load us up with all the latest and greatest. He recently took another position and that left a bit of a vacuum.

As luck would have it, I was recently working with one of my customers, Viden Industries and told him to get a hold of someone at Sandvik and get some better tooling. His cycle times were 8 minutes on op 1 and 21 minutes on op 2. That was horrible and yes Dennis, the machine can run a lot faster than that. You need some tooling better than what your getting from the Shar catalog. So he called and a fellow named Tim came out and gave him a 3/8 Solid Carbide End Mill that had a new design and coating. It was a new End Mill, just on the market as of last December. Runs dry with air blast at full depth, no pecking. Needless to say Dennis was nervous about putting a 150 dollar end mill into his machine and running it a full 1/2" depth at 5000 rpm's and a feed rate of 85 inches a minute. Op 1 was 37 seconds. Op 2 was 4 and half minutes. Pretty freaking fantastic. But would it last?

I am happy to report that end mill one lasted thru all 255 pieces of op 1 and is still being used for op 2 as of this post. What a difference a single end mill can make. 

New VM30i

We tested it out on our VM30 when Tim came by the showroom. We didn't have 4140 like Viden had, just 6061 Alum. So our speeds and feeds were a bit different. Like 10,000 RPM's and a feed of 312 inches a minute. Oh and that was at a depth of 3/4". We cut a pocket 2 inches wide, 3/4" deep by 8 inches long in 27 seconds in one pass. No coolant, no air. We could have pushed it faster if we had a higher spindle speed.

So we installed a new VMX42HSRTi with an 18K spindle to try it out. I'll let you know the results!

New VMX42HSRTi at Gage Machine Tool

SFQ - How does it work?

I have been asked several times of late about the SFQ feature on the Hurco control and thought I would dig up a previous blog post by Mike Cope at Hurco to explain in detail. I admit, I do not have the best explanation for how this works. So I will let Mike do the talking.

SFQ in detail

Its an excellent read and Mike does a good job explaining everything Hurco, I would highly recommend you subscribing to his posts and these as well!

If you have something that you would like us to highlight here please let me know!
Thanks,

Chad Waldo

IMTS 2016

It's hard to believe but there is another IMTS just around the corner. September 12th thru the 16th at McCormick Place in Chicago IL. Two of our top brands will be there with the boys from Gage Machine Tool being firmly planted in the Hurco showcase located at S-8319 right across from the Index booth. As always it will be a packed week with more to look at than your eyes can handle. 

If you are going to IMTS this year we would like to know! Below is a quick survey that is completely anonymous. The data collected is for internal purposes only to see what kind of traffic we will get from our area. Thanks in advance and we hope to see you in Chicago!

Quick 3 question survey!

What Makes Index, Index?

So what does make an Index Machine so much faster than the competition? Check out this killer video from Index partners GEO Kingsbury. The first time I watched it my only question was, "How quickly can I get one in my garage?"

New Year, New Site

2016 is here and January is already done and over with. This year brings a few changes to the line up here at Gage Machine Tool. So we felt it was appropriate to freshen up the website as well. We have simplified the site into four pages, condensing down the information as well. One new page that we have added is this one!  Updates to our blog will be monthly. You will find posts about special sales, training events, press releases and even success stories from customers. 

If you would like to share the success story of your shop, let us know! We would love to feature your work here.

In the mean time be sure to check the page every so often as we will have regular updates.